HEARTS supporters will have collectively winced as they watched Liam Boyce hobble off the park during Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at home to Rangers. Just 12 minutes had elapsed when the centre-forward gestured towards the bench to ask for a substitution and had to be brought of the Tynecastle turf.
There will have been concerns, no doubt, that the Northern Irish striker would not be fit for this weekend’s Scottish Cup final but the man himself insists that come what may, he will be fit and firing come kick-off in Mount Florida.
There will be those that questioned the wisdom of Boyce starting what was essentially a dead rubber against the Premiership runners-up but the 31-year-old wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I feel better,” Boyce said. “Obviously what happened gave me a bit of a fright. It was sore and I did think ‘Oh no’ but since then it’s been getting better and better so I’m a lot more positive now.
“When I went into the dressing room I was gutted. I just wanted to give myself a chance. By Saturday night I was walking a bit better. I’d a massive strapping on it. I’m just buzzing that it wasn’t as bad as first thought.
“It’s just a bit of tightness now. You don’t want to go into a game without training all week so it’s more a balancing act in terms of finding out what I can do as soon as possible and build it up so I’m ready to go.
“I want to play in every game. I’m obviously a bit older now. When I was a kid you want to play football every day. I still want to do that now.
“I love football so I’ll always want to play any time I can. When there’s such a big game coming up, you don’t want to risk it but if you are on a good run of form – or even if you’re not – you need to play.
“There’s no regrets that I played on Saturday. I wanted to play and I did.”
Of course, the decision over whether or not the striker will start at Hampden does not rest with Boyce. Robbie Neilson, the Hearts head coach, will make the final call but the forward will do everything in his power to convince his boss that he is ready to give his all as the capital club pursue a first Scottish Cup triumph in a decade.
“If I had one leg I’d still say I could play in the final,” Boyce insisted. “Obviously the team comes first. If I wasn’t 100 per cent and someone else was coming in and that gave us a better chance of winning, that would be a different story.
“I’d happily say ‘no problem’ if that gave us the best chance of winning. I’ll tell them how it is and how it feels. If they ask me if I’m available to play I’ll say yes. I want to play.
“But it’s the gaffer’s decision - he’ll decide what’s best for the team and whatever that is we’ll all agree on it.”
Hearts last reached the final in the Covid-interrupted 2019/20 campaign, with the game eventually being played in December 2020. Celtic came out on top on penalties on that occasion behind closed doors at the national stadium but Boyce believes there is a crucial change this time around.
“This is completely different,” he explained. “Even the atmosphere that day … there was no one in the stadium.
“The build-up was brilliant but then you got to the stadium and it didn’t really feel like a Scottish Cup final.
“It was a bit subdued. Obviously the way we lost was gutting at the time. This time there’s going to be 50,000 people watching and the atmosphere is going to be brilliant.”
